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Thursday, February 6, 2014

My grandpa died a year ago Friday. I wrote a eulogy and read it at his funeral, and meant to post it online back then, but things were a little hectic. I know he'd like people to read about him, though. He was a celebrity that way.

Being a journalist has taught me how to ask questions and listen, something I take for granted most of the time. But it made me think it was really special to be able to use those skills to interview my own family. And then it made me think that it doesn't take special skills to talk to each other more, even if it's sloppy. Share the stories, good and bad. Write them down. Don't forget. It's simple if you do it.

Here's the eulogy.

The
baby came screaming into the world on Oct. 18, 1924. When his parents
gave him a bath, he turned the color of blueberries. They were certain
he would die so they called in a priest and a doctor. He was baptized
once and named Adam. Then, in his first great act of defiance, he lived.
He was baptized again and named Wilford.

He
sunk fast and breathless into the things around him. He made a scooter
from an orange crate and a two-by-four, tin cans for lights and a
dismantled roller skate for wheels. He made a model airplane powered by
rubber bands, and when it crashed, he fixed the front with strips of
bamboo. It kept crashing, so he tied a lit match to the plane and
watched it come down in flames.After
high school, his parents gave him a 1937 Harley Davidson motorcycle. He
painted it by hand, dashing a lightning bolt down the side, and posed
against it in leather boots and gloves, leg cocked and lip curled.

During
World War II, Wil’s friends were being called up. Wil was not, so he
asked why. The draft board workers found his papers stuck in the back of
a drawer. He picked the Coast Guard because no one else was in line
that day. He learned to shoot guns, to lower life boats, to speak in
Morse code.He learned ju-jitsu and boxing, how to save people and how
to march in parades. He was lost at sea for a week. He spent eight hours
at a time searching for overturned sailboats, kids on rafts, helpless
fishermen, stalled and broken ships. At least twice, luck and instincts
kept him off planes that crashed.

He
met Rita Smith at the roller rink back home. He asked her for a spin
during couple’s skate, and they waltzed together on wheels. When she
came to dinner, he made his mom set the table with their finest
dressings. Rita’s mother loved Wil. She made him cream pies, and when
they didn’t turn out, he promised to drink them with a straw. Wil and
Rita worked together like a see-saw. Where Wil was wild, Rita was
steady. Where Wil wanted the sky, Rita wanted the ground. He took her up
in an airplane – once. He took her on his motorcycle – once. He
proposed at Lakeview Park in January 1946. She had been ready for it
since Christmas.

Wil
was a pipe inspector, a salesman, a tool designer, a foreman, a process
engineer. He was president of KTS Met-Bar until 1995. He ran Wil’s
Radio Shop, fixing radios on the nights and weekends. He worked two jobs
at once to support his wife and their six children.He bought the lot next to the family home on 21st
Street so his kids could have a place to play. He loved to invent
stories, letting the kids fill the holes in silly voices. He took them
to the drive-in movies in their pajamas and sprung for large root beers
and Snyder’s chips. After seeing Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,
he bought everyone chocolate bars. Rita kept a tight budget, but when
Wil did the grocery shopping, he brought home cigarettes and moon pies.He
hated going to bed angry, so he’d apologize to everyone, even if he
wasn’t wrong. He often slept on the floor. Maybe he liked how it felt.
Or maybe he wanted to see his teenagers come through the door at night.
Just when they turned off the television, he’d pry open an eye and say,
“Hey, I was watching that.”Wil
connected with each of his children in different ways. Mickie was his
oldest, and he was the only one she would let teach her to drive.
Barbara was his baby and he picked her up every weekend from college,
even through snow and ice. Nancy and Wil critiqued each other’s writings
and spent hours in his computer room learning new gadgets. He loved to
talk about the military and engineering with Dennis, and visit real
estate properties all over town with Dale. Pam drove him everywhere, and
when he finally gave up his car after much protest, he told her he’d
repay the favor one day when she couldn’t drive.

He
loved his 14 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren and was genuinely
interested in our lives. He passed on stamps and books and gadgets from
his basement. He showed us things he invented and saved specifically for
us. He taught us about history, how to write cover letters for jobs,
how to beat the high score in Snood. He called us all “George,” and told
us to save our money for good whiskey. He picked up his grandsons from
school. “Did you learn anything today?” he’d ask. “Nope,” they’d say.
“Good,” he’d say. And they’d buckle in and drive away.

He
and Rita were their own Bonnie and Clyde. When the kids told them to
lay off the McDonalds, they went in the morning before anyone was awake.
They knew all the breakfast spots in town, where Rita ordered eggs over
medium and Wil ordered his softly scrambled with rye toast, “Toasted,”
because he didn’t want warm bread. Wil enjoyed a monthly Manhattan, and
Rita knew one was enough and two was too many. She knew, too, that her
husband needed to do things to feel like himself, needed to mow the
lawn, needed to visit Kathy at Subway and bring Julie the turkey at
Thanksgiving, needed to pass out Christmas bonuses at his old shop. And
Wil knew Rita needed him there, sitting at the helm of the table making
jokes and sneaking cookies, starting big ideas with, “I was thinking…”
So at night, when the errands were done and the visitors had left, they
would lie in bed and hold hands until they fell asleep, and in the
morning, Wil would wake up, look at Rita and say, “You’re my favorite
person in the whole world.”

Wil
faded, quieted in body but not spirit. While sick in bed he drew a
stunning portrait of his doctor.

He examined the tissue boxes in his
hospital room and invented new uses for them. He fought and fought and
fought, raised his hands in the air, then left softly with his
faculties, his curiosities and his visitors around him.The
day Wil died, his grandson, Max, walked through Wil’s basement. He
found a little yellowed sheet of paper Wil had written on years before,
buried beneath a book on a desk. It said, “If a tiny baby could think,
it would be afraid of birth. To leave the only world it has known would
seem a kind of death. But immediately after birth, the child would find
itself in loving arms, showered with affection and cared for at every
moment. Surely the baby would say, “I was foolish to doubt God’s plan
for me. This is a beautiful life.”